Concentration camp uniforms worn by prisoners in Auschwitz in 1945 – the type up for sale on eBay (Picture: AP)

Auction website eBay has apologised unreservedly after it was revealed numerous items from the Holocaust, including a concentration camp uniform once worn by a prisoner, were being sold on the site.

Following an investigation by the Mail on Sunday, eBay rushed to delete the auction listings and said they should never have been uploaded in the first place.

The disturbing pieces up for sale included the well-worn suitcase of a Holocaust victim for £492, a £145 ‘concentration camp toothbrush,’ and a striped Auschwitz prisoner uniform – which is believed to have belonged to a Polish baker – for £11,200.

The Sunday newspaper said that eBay has also promised to donate £25,000 to charity, in addition to deleting more than 30 listings.

One of the articles up for sale alongside wooden female clogs

A statement from the company said: ‘We are very sorry these items have been listed on eBay and we are removing them.

‘We don’t allow listings of this nature, and dedicate thousands of staff to policing our site and use the latest technology to detect items that shouldn’t be for sale.

‘We very much regret that we didn’t live up to our own standards.’

Online shopping website eBay profits from the listings on its site by charging a fee for hosting goods and then taking a cut on all items sold.

A battered prisoner’s suitcase up for sale on the auction site, which has now been removed

The trade and sale of Holocaust relics and memorabilia is legal in the UK but outlawed in Germany, France and Austria.

The seller, a Ukrainian man living in Canada called Viktor Kempf, defended his listings and said: ‘These periods in history are horrific, nobody should ever forget them.’

He added: ‘I understand why people may think profiting is wrong but I sell these items to document [them] and to fund my book projects. If I was a descendant of a victim, I would want to see how my relatives lived. I would want to buy these items to remember them.’